The present invention relates to a helically mounted motor. More particularly, the present invention relates to such a motor mounted in a disk drive for driving a disk within an inserted cartridge.
A disk drive for receiving a removable disk cartridge is known. Examples of a disk drive include a conventional 3.5 inch xe2x80x98floppyxe2x80x99 disk drive, a xe2x80x9cZIPxe2x80x9d disk drive as developed and marketed by IOMEGA Corporation of Roy, Utah, and the like. Such a disk drive is typically coupled to a processor or the like, and facilitates an exchange of information between the processor and a disk contained within the disk cartridge. The disk and the disk drive may be magnetically or optically based, for example.
The disk cartridge typically includes an outer casing or shell that houses the aforementioned disk therein. The disk is mounted on a hub and can rotate freely within the cartridge. Typically, the disk drive includes a frame or chassis and a disk motor which is mounted thereto, wherein during operation of the drive, the motor engages the hub of the disk and applies a rotating force thereto.
In one arrangement, the inserted disk resides in an X-Y plane and the motor is moved into contact with the disk (rather than the disk being moved into contact with motor) in a direction generally perpendicular to the X-Y plane of such inserted disk, i.e., along a Z-axis. Moreover, such movement of such motor is actuated as part of receiving and retaining the disk cartridge in the frame. Accordingly, the motor is movable along the Z-axis between a disk-engagement or loaded position and a disk-separation or unloaded position.
In one arrangement, such a disk motor is helically mounted to the frame, and thus moves in a helical manner about the Z-axis between the disk-engagement position and the disk-separation position and into contact with the disk to rotate such disk. That is to say, rotation of the body of the motor about the Z-axis achieves displacement of such motor along such Z-axis. Typically, the motor is coaxially mounted to a baseplate which is positioned within and coaxially movable within a coaxial aperture defined within the frame.
In one such prior art disk drive, the motor baseplate is provided with a coaxial inner load ring at a peripheral edge thereof and the aperture is provided with a coaxial outer load ring at a peripheral edge thereof such that the inner load ring resides just within the outer load ring and the rings in combination define a helical mount. That is, one of the load rings includes a plurality of ramps and the other of the load rings included a plurality of guides that ride respective ones of the ramps, whereby the ramps and guides of the load rings in combination impart the helical mounting functionality to the disk motor and disk drive. Such a prior art disk drive is shown and discussed in much greater detail in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,002,547 and 6,064,548, each of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
Importantly, each prior art load ring is a separate part that must be manufactured separately and mounted within the disk drive to either the frame or the motor base plate, as the case may be, in a separate construction step. Also, as a separate part, each load ring introduces tolerance requirements to the disk drive and therefore introduces ways in which the disk drive can be defective, either by being manufactured or mounted incorrectly. As may certainly be appreciated, such separate load rings therefore impart additional costs into the manufacture of the disk drive.
Accordingly, a need exists for a disk drive that does not require such prior art separate load rings. More particularly, a need exists for a disk drive that incorporates the load rings into the motor base plate and the frame, thereby eliminating the inner and outer load rings and the manufacturing, construction, tolerance, and cost issues associated therewith.
The present invention satisfies the aforementioned need by providing a disk drive for receiving a removable storage disk thereinto. The disk drive has a frame and a disk motor helically mounted thereto for engaging the disk and applying a rotating force thereto. The motor has first threads integral therewith and the frame has second, mating threads integral therewith. The first and second threads interact to achieve helical movement.